Brown seeks to impose ‘prudence’ on the banking system
Gordon Brown wants to prevent banks and building societies offering 100 per cent mortgages as part of a drive for a return to "prudence" in high street banking. The Government has asked the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to review the rules which currently allow lenders to offer loans worth the entire value of a property, or even more. Brown, who visits Berlin today for an economic summit, says he wants a future where bankers are the "servants" of the British economy. (Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, Observer)
The Mole: Harman back in her box, but watch out for Johnson 
Sympathy grows for outlaws, thanks to the greedy bankers
Pros and Cons: Bonuses for bankers
Stanford was investigated over drugs links
The Texan billionaire Allen Stanford, who has brought embarrassment to the England and Wales Cricket Board after he was accused of running a multibillion-dollar fraud at his bank in Antigua and his US-based financial services firm, was investigated no fewer than five times by US and British law enforcement agencies over the past 20 years, it has emerged. Stanford has been probed over alleged business links with some of the world's most powerful drug lords in Colombia. (Independent on Sunday)
People: FBI find 'fraudster' Stanford
Drugs dealers are folk heroes in lawless Central America
British accused of torture ‘collusion’
A new report by Human Rights Watch claims at least 10 Britons have been tortured by Pakistani security agents and then subsequently questioned by their British counterparts. Ali Dayan Hasan, who led the group's investigation said Pakistan had provided "confirmation and information" of British collusion in interrogations in Pakistan. The report will further embarrass foreign secretary David Miliband who has denied condoning torture, but refused to disclose evidence. (Observer)
Legalising torture would make it more effective
High street ignores the VAT cut
High street shops are failing to pass on the Government's cut in VAT from 17.5 to 15 per cent, an investigation has found. Some shops never implemented the cut, while others have quietly pushed prices back up again. Retailers including Gap, House of Fraser and Selfridges are selling stock at the same prices now as before the cut. The shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "This research confirms... Gordon Brown's policies to deal with the recession are failing." (Sunday Times)
The VAT cut was purely a political exercise
Wine: Don't toast Darling's VAT cut
Pensioners forced to sell homes
Record numbers of pensioners are having to sell their houses to pay for a place in a care home, new figures show. Last year, 45,000 people had to sell their homes to pay their fees, a rise of 12 per cent in five years. Charities said the situation was a "national disgrace", while there were warnings that the current collapse in the housing market makes the situation even worse. Last year 40 per cent of care home residents paid all their own bills. (Sunday Telegraph)
The Mole: Budget may be delayed in the hope that something will turn up
A leaked report has revealed systematic abuse of parliamentary allowances by MEPs, enabling some to pocket £1m profit for a single five-year term of office. Scams involve paying salaries to assistants who do not appear to exist and family members. (Sunday Times)
Daniel Hannan: Euro MPs can teach Westminster all about expenses fiddling
MEPs who ride the Brussels gravy train
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, is facing a fresh revolt from Labour MPs demanding greater protection for so-called "temporary" agency workers, following the sacking of hundreds of workers at BMW's Oxford plant last week. (Observer)
People: Mandelson declares war on Starbucks boss
The Conservatives have pledged to end 'caution culture' in the police. The party's shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, said he would ensure all youths involved in violent attacks or carrying knives were prosecuted, instead of being cautioned. (Sunday Telegraph)
A surprising case of official competence
Gang policy on a wing and a prayer
George Soros, one of the world's most renowned financial gurus, says the world financial system has "effectively disintegrated", producing turbulence worse than the Great Depression. Soros said there was "no sign we are anyhere near a bottom". (Independent on Sunday)
People: Soros predicts worse recession for 50 years
A new Government leaflet will advise parents not to bring moral issues of right and wrong into discussions about sex with children. One Christian group attacked the suggestion as "outrageous" because "preserving children's innocence is a worthy goal". (Sunday Times)
Who says our kids should not have sesx?
A bag of sweets has sold for £14,500. Supposedly the last bag of Woolworths pic 'n' mix in existence, after the High Street stalwart went bust last year, it was auctioned online by Ed Adams, a former Woolies store manager, for a charity for retail workers. (Observer)
Human rights groups say they are shocked by the Obama administration's refusal to reverse a Bush policy which denies terror suspects the right to trial. A makeshift camp in Afghanistan, housing hundreds of suspects, has been dubbed "Obama's Guantanamo". (Independent on Sunday)
Bagram - the granddaddy of US terror camps
The Obama White House: Preident moves swiftly on Guantanamo
Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe turned 85 yesterday, and a week of lavish celebrations will follow. Africa's oldest leader held an initial fund-raiser party last night for 2,000 guests at a luxury hotel. Ninety-four percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed. (Sunday Times)
Zimbabwe Today: exclusive reports from our man in Harare
Guerillas in the south of Lebanon launched a rocket attack on Israel yesterday, raising the prospect of renewed Arab-Israeli tension. One missile injured a woman in Galilee. Israel reacted with a barrage of artillery shells. There were no deaths. (Sunday Telegraph)
Israeli immigrants filled with a lust for revenge
Failed bank Northern Rock is to be transformed into a state-owned 'good bank' with a £10bn cash injection. The details are still being finalised, but it is thought the bank will be free to start offering new loans to home owners under the scheme. (Observer)
Renationalisation can cure other British failures
HSBC and Barclays are to pay up to £2bn of bonuses in the next few weeks, in defiance of Gordon Brown's insistence that they show restraint during the financial crisis. HSBC's chief executive, Michael Geoghegan (left), is expected to get more than £1m. (Sunday Times)
Pros and Cons: Bonuses for bankers
The Danish and Swedish post offices are examining a joint bid for a stake in Royal Mail. The two post offices, in the process of merging, would acquire a 30 per cent share in the Government's controversial scheme to part-privatise the post office. (Sunday Telegraph)
Will Self: The Post Office we hanker after doesn't exist any more
The Royal Shakespeare Company has angered a Maori tribe, which has accused it of showing contempt for its traditional Haka dance by including a version in a production of The Taming of the Shrew in which the dancers drop their trousers and 'moon' the audience. (Independent on Sunday)
All Blacks give blood for the cause
American sculptor Jeff Koons, the 'King of Kitsch' notorious for artworks featuring him having sex with his porn star wife, has been commissioned to make one of the world's most expensive artworks - a 161ft, £18m sculpture of a crane raising a train. (Sunday Times)
Jeff Koons at Versailles
Some of Britain's leading arts figures, including sculptor Antony Gormley, have launched a campaign to reverse stringent visa controls which they say are preventing top foreign musicians, actors and artists from entering Britain to perform. (Observer)
Norman Lamont is enjoying an increasing number of bookings as an after-dinner speaker by virtue of his having been chancellor during the last recession. (Observer) Dame Vivienne Westwood launched a new catwalk collection last night themed around the English schoolgirl. (Sunday Times) Hazel Blears, biker and secretary of state for communities and local government, is having her new motorbike custom-made. (Observer) "If I got really lonely, I would shoot myself" - Comic actor David Walliams requesting a gun as his luxury for Desert Island Discs. (Sunday Times) Historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson is in negotiations to spend 2010-11 as visiting professor at the London School of Economics. (Sunday Telegraph) "Being with her was like sticking an eggbeater in your brain" - Actor Robert Wagner on Liz Taylor. (Mail on Sunday) Radio presenter Ed Stourton is to make a programme on the river Jordan after his last appearance on the Today programme. (Observer) An official biographer has finally been found for the late Roy Jenkins. John Campbell, who wrote a biography of Edward Heath, will tell the Labour chancellor's life story. (Sunday Telegraph) "A lot of my friends smoke weed... and I chill with them" - Chloe Madeley, daughter of TV presenters Richard and Judy, who was photographed with a bong. (Mail on Sunday) News at Ten presenter Mark Austin dubbed his new co-presenter, Julie Etchingham, 'Head Prefect'. Etchingham responded by having a badge made for Austin which says 'Deputy Head Prefect'. (Sunday Telegraph) It's rumoured that Bilawal Bhutto, son of late Pakistani PM Benazir, may stand for treasurer of the Oxford Union. His mother was president of the student society in 1976. (Sunday Times) Socks, Bill Clinton's cat during his White House years, has died at the age of 18. (Sunday Mirror) Tony Blair has set up Tony Blair Associates, a firm which will provide "strategic advice on a commercial and pro-bono basis". (Sunday Times) Charlie Bean, deputy governor of the Bank of England has spent £19,410 on foreign travel since starting work in July. (Sunday Telegraph) "I am trying to think of the last time that I was in a pub" - Alan Campbell, the Home Office minister behind new reforms to licensing laws, unpopular with publicans. (Sunday Times) Reality TV star Jade Goody, who has been told she only has months to live after cancer spread to her bowel, liver and groin, is to be married today to fiance Jack Tweed. (News of the World) Labour MPs were ordered to clear their offices above the Commons tea room last week after a plague of hungry moths attacked. The moths ate soft furnishings. (People) A 29-year-old woman with an inoperable brain tumour, Lisa Connell, is spending £40,000 of her mother's savings on plastic surgery so she can look like actress Demi Moore. (Sunday Mirror) Britain's former fattest teenager, 18-year-old Malissa Jones, has lost 20 stone after undergoing a gastric bypass operation. Jones weighed 34 stone when she was 16. (News of the World) Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has signed up a foul-mouthed nine-year-old to appear on his show. Felix Light became a YouTube star for his impersonations of Ramsay. (Sunday Mirror)
In pictures: The Jade Goody show 
Posts
